Harry Potter And The Incredibly Oversold Hyperbole

The final days are upon us; muggles are crowding in mall book stores and department stores, patiently awaiting the arrival of the final novel in the Harry Potter series. Muggles, along with Squibs, Half-Bloods, Death Eaters, Seekers, Bludgers…and…oh, forget it. I have no idea what any of this means, and a rather large part of me doesn’t care.

The hype surrounding the newest Harry Potter book is largely unprecedented. The author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, is currently the highest earning author of all time. The movies are reliable blockbusters, and millions of people the world over are ardent fans that put Trekkies and Star Wars fans to shame, at least in the percentage demographic of actively participating MILFs.

With such a highly anticipated book, dozens of rumors of various realistic chances of being true are spreading like wildfire across the Internet and beyond. So with due diligence to my regular readers, here is a list of completely verifiable gossip items about the final Harry Potter book:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is forced to pay out over $660 million dollars to former students for “undisclosed” reasons. In an unrelated story, Snape was transferred to the Sao Paulo branch of Hogwarts.

Hedwig is the result of a chance encounter one sinful night between Charlie the Owl and Henrietta Hippo from the New Zoo Revue.

Harry Potter finally masters a spell that will make an eighteen-year-old actor appear to have yet hit puberty.

“The Deathly Hallows” turns out to be a strict allegory concerning itself mostly with middle-aged housewives who somehow expect the novel they wrote in that Creative Writing Class back in 1982 but had to abandon it when her “study partner” knocked her up to turn into a seven-book franchise but are ultimately let down by the curse of fate known as “having no real talent but delusions of ability in spades.”

The Sorting Hat determined the house assignments that Harry, Hermione, and Ron received not because of their innate abilities, but because Hermione’s father “knew a guy” and Ron was “too Jewish” for Ravenclaw.

Alan Rickman is one creepy-ass dude. This isn’t so much a rumor as established fact.

In one of the final dramatic scenes, Quiddich players go on strike, with the end result being two expansion teams and a salary cap. Hogwarts officials immediately demand a local sales tax be levied to pay for a new stadium or they will move the team to Portland, Oregon.

The Ministry of Magic continues to deny that the Second Wizarding War was fought simply to search for weapons of mortal destruction but was an all-encompassing casus belli, despite what the record states, and in any case they certainly can’t pull out now.

Dumbledore didn’t really die; he simply ran for president as the Green candidate and disappeared in a small puff of irrelevancy.

The last book is pretty much a blatant plagiarism of certain elements of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Lord of the Rings, and every two-dollar book with a wand or pointy hat on the cover from the Scholastic Book Club. Which really isn’t a surprise, since that’s how the first six books were written.

Lord Voldemort is finally destroyed by stripping him of his magical powers and installed as the chairman of the Exxon Corporation, where he manages to gain market share and finds that pissing around with magical spells and prepubescent Merlin wannabes is pretty lame when you have an $87 million dollar golden parachute.

Harry’s choice of becoming a wizard was actually one of the three choices offered to any eleven-year-old with a lightning bolt tattooed on his forehead, the other two choices being professional wrestler and anime villain.

Likewise, Hermione is left to devote her life as a witch with a number of choices few mortals are presented with: witch nurse, witch cook, and witch teacher.

Something happens to Ron, though it appears that no one really cares.

“Avada Kedavra” roughly translates into “If you’re actually paying retail for this book, the spell is not necessary; the magic has already been completed.”

Of the many items in the Harry Potter universe that are invisible to muggles but can only be seen by wizards, perhaps the most prominent is the gaping loss of self-respect inherent in the fact that you’re thirty five years old and reading a book about boy wizards playing made up sports at what is essentially a boarding school for nerds.

A magical spell is created in the last few pages of the book that causes the author to refuse to write a book for at least two years, after which the statements that prequels and sequels are “100% definitely not an option” will suddenly appear as viable opportunities. This spell is called the “one million dollar advance.”

The final twist of the Harry Potter universe is the release of a dark and evil spirit that pervades throughout the lands, its effects dark and unsurpassed in all of history: millions upon millions of schoolchildren snap shut their books, start playing Mario Kart for eight hours a day, and in a few years sell all their hardbacks on eBay for a buck apiece.